Do we need a water desalination plant in SC?

There is a crucial debate about whether the Santa Cruz Water Department should go ahead with its plans for desalination. If conservation programs were systematically encouraged, there wouldn’t be problems for many years to come. Furthermore, new techniques of rain water collection exist which could be put to use for needs other than house needs. Desalination strikes me as a strange, enormously expensive, wasteful solution, for a town which receives 770mm of annual precipitation near sea level according to the wiki (118 yrs of record). Note that Ben Lomond, which records climate data since 1937, receives an average of 1244mm of annual precipitation.

Desalination will entail an entirely parallel production and piping system (sea water requires steel and plastic piping). It will also consume large amounts of energy. For some of the details, see Desal Alternatives. I would think everyone will see their water bill go up significantly following such foolish investments. Once wedded to this kind of technical solutions, it will become impossible to avoid even greater costs and probably differential access to water, vs the present public access.